tf.\ 



m 








' 


JBffL 




f6 s ^J§) 


Glass 


HBSSl 


Book 


.Til 


SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT 



RESEARCHES 



UPON THE 



VITAL DYIAMICS 



OF 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT 



13 V 



BENNET DOWLER, M. D., 

OF NEW-ORLEANS, 

CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA &C 






Wherever there are most happiness and virtue, and the 
wisest institutions, there will be the most people. — Hume. 



I [Reprinted from the New-Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal.] 



NEW.ORLEANS : 

PUBLISHED BY WELD & CO., NO. 72 CAMP STREET. 

JOSEPH COHN, PRINTER, NO. 31 POYDRAS STREET. 

1849. 



1. 



l> 



tf>$t 



TO THE 

MEMORY 

OF OUR 

AJNGLO AMERICAN ANCESTORS, 

THE PUREST PATRIOTS THAT EVER DESCENDED TO THE TOMB J 

SAGES, 

WHOSE GENIUS DISCOVERED, AND WHOSE EXAMPLE ENFORCED 

THE PRINCIPLE OF 

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT, 

WHICH HAS CONTRIBUTED, BESIDES ITS MULTITUDINOUS BLESSINGS, 

CIVIL, SOCIAL, MORAL AND PHYSICAL, 

A NEW ELEMENT OF VITAL PROGRESSION, 

THIS MONOGRAPH 

IS DEDICATED. 






RESEARCHES 



UPON THE 



VITAL DYNAMICS 



of 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT 



la constructing the following monograph, the work of two days, the 
scissors, rather than the pen, has been applied, that is to say, portions 
of a MS. work on Vital Statistics have been cut out without having 
been, with few exceptions, revised, copied, and connected by the rationa- 
tive and inductive processes necessary to give full effect to the leading 
argument, the weak points of which, are not, therefore, guarded, nor 
apparent contradictions reconciled, nor objections anticipated and 
answered. The facts adduced may not prove the doctrine with which 
they have been here associated, but they are not, for that reason, the 
less worthy of a careful study ; for, if they do not justify the suggestions 
thrown out, they may awaken inquiry, and lead to a more philosophical 
interpretation. It is right to apprise the reader, that I have examined 
the most authentic works illustrative of vital dynamics, (though that 
examination may not appear in this paper,) including phrenology, eth- 
nology, psychology, social physics, climatic agencies, the perturbations 
of immigrations, and emigrations, the geographical distribution of races, 
the density of population, mortality, marriage, births, the mean duration 
of life, the physical comforts, as food; also pauperism, industry, capital, 
education, not to name that all-comprehending subject vaguely denomi- 
nated civilization. The theory of the abundance of the physical com- 
forts as the cause of vital progression, will doubtlessly command the 



greatest number of suffrages,— a theory that I had formerly adopted, bu« 
which does not now seem to me altogether satisfactory. Without 
attempting to explain their modes of operation, I propose at present, to 
suggest some other elements as suitable to be added to the composition 
of vital causation, — elements, which carry with them more or less proba- 
bility, though they may fall short of demonstration, — one of these, is as 
entirely American as the potato and maize, and has contributed, per- 
haps, more than both the latter, to the vital advancement of mankind, 

an element, the most luminous, Christianity excepted, that has ever 

been developed in the history of the human race. 

Civil polity, so far as it affects vital increment and decrement, longevity 
and salubrity, and, the science of population generally, is as much a 
medical question, as vaccination or quinine. Bentham says, "Of all 
actions of man, those which preserve the individual, and those which 
preserve the species, are undoubtedly the most beneficial to the com- 
munity." * 

Since the commencement of history, never did a single year include 
within its orbit so many great, yet incomplete events, affecting the 
civil and social conditions of society, as that of the past year — events, 
that must long influence for good or evil, the vital progression of the 
world. The Representative Principle is now extensively arrayed against 
the Monarchical, the Sovereignty of People against the Sovereignty of 
Kings, and the long established claims of hereditary absolutism. What- 
ever may be the denouement of this grand drama, it cannot fail to interest 
the physiologist, as well as the philanthropist, the vital statistician, as well 
as the statesman. The paleontologist who explores with enthusiasm 
the fossilized remains of former worlds, and is lost in amazement in con- 
templating the catastrophes by which entire races of animals and plants 
have been wholly lost, has for his study, a subject less curious and less 
interesting than the vital ethnologist of the present era. 

The perturbations of the present, and the uncertainties of the future, 
can only be comprehended, if at all, by the lights of the past. 

If vital progression, in the Caucasian race, be the result of several an- 
tecedents, it is probable that the form of government, other things being 
equal, is the principal element of acceleration, or retardation, according 
as this government approximates the representative, or monarchial 
principle. Climate, territorial expansion, the mere physical comforts, 
exemption from epidemics, immigration, are not the sole causes of vital 
movement. 

If the limits of this paper would allow, it could be shown that the 
dynamical principle of population in the United States is not owing to 
immigration — that the ratio of increase has not been greatly influenced 
from this cause at any decennial period of enumeration. The present 
one may prove an exception. 

Among the numerous examples of Dr. Franklin's sagacity and fore- 
sight, not the least striking is his statement concerning the progress of 
population in North Ameriea, made in 1751, at a period when he had 
not the benefit of the accurate data furnished by a single census. He 
then estimated "the number of English souls at upwards of one million, 

* Social Science, i, 137, 141. 



though scarcely 80,000 had been brought over the sea,'' and yet, he 
adds, " perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain. This million, 
doubling once in twenty five years " 4*c. Here the ratio of increase, is 
indicated, (though a little lower than the reality). Every decennial 
census since taken, confirms his opinion, with this slight exception. 

Dr. Seybert, one of the most voluminous writers on American statis- 
tics, estimates for the thirty years ending in 1810, that the average an- 
nual number of immigrants did not exceed six thousand. In his work, 
published in 1818, he estimates the emigrants from Europe during the 
twenty years preceding, at 120,000, and their increase at the extraordi- 
nary rate of 5 per cent per annum, as making in this period, 180,000, 
which, when deducted from the total increase for twenty years, namely, 
2,824,910, will leave 2,644,910, for the augmentation independent of any 
from abroad ; " or, the duplication of the free whites without the emi- 
grants" Hence, he concluded, that in 20 years our population had been 
immaterially augmented by immigration. He says that the number of 
emigrants (immigrants) for ten years ending in 1806, was only 4,000 
each year, and that, in 1817, only 22,240 passengers arrived, both citi- 
zens and aliens, including 877 at New Orleans. 

By the official report of the State department, for the year ending on 
the 30th of September 1844, the whole number of passengers arriving in 
the United States from other countries, amounted to 84,764. It is prob- 
able that the greater proportion of these did not settle in the country, 
but came only on business or for pleasure. It will be seen, that if 
New York be excepted, about one sixth of the residue were landed at 
New Orleans. This branch of the subject is too extensive for this 
paper. 

Nor is there room, in this paper, to show, that our Pilgrim fathers 
settled the least fertile, the least genial, and the least salubrious portion 
of the new Continent, nor that they had been preceded more than a 
century by numerous emigrants, aided by powerful navies and well ap- 
pointed armies, all of whom, were ambitious to conquer the effeminate 
and almost unresisting nations that possessed the new, mysterious world, 
which teemed with all the elements of natural wealth, and mineral 
treasures — plains almost as vast as the ocean, stretching from the pla- 
teaux of Mexico and the llanos of Caraccas, to the pampas of the Rio 
de la Plata. It could be shown that the Caucasians of North America 
were not only few in number, poor, unsupported, but were exposed to a 
rigorous climate, to hardships, to epidemics, to starvation, and to the 
ceaseless hostilities of the most courageous savages known to history, 
whereby more than half of the immigrants came to an untimely end — 
that North America is, I repeat it, naturally inferior in extent, in fertility, 
in climate, and in salubrity, to South America. In the latter, the 
domestic animals* brought from Europe, soon multiplied without human 
care, darkening the face of the great central plains, affording an inex- 
haustible supply of animal food, over a space wherein the entire popu- 

* In Chili horses sold for a dollar each. In 1798 Buenos Ayres exported 
43,752 horse hides, and 874,593 cow hides. According to the eloquent Prescott, 
Cortez had less than 20 horses when he invaded Mexico. The sight of a horse 
was the most terrible object in nature to a Mexican. 



lation of Europe, might, at this day, live without being crowded — plains, 
(plateaux, llanos, pampas), which, elevated about two hundred feet, 
give, including those depressed valleys of the Amazon, an area, accor- 
ding to Humboldt, of at least three millions of square miles — more than 
sixty times as large as Louisiana. 

These topographical allusions, (which may be again indulged in), 
are deemed important, as they completely overthrow some of the theo- 
ries of vital science, which have been proposed in Europe, as explana- 
tory of the Progress of the Northern Republic. Mr. Sadler, member 
of Parliament, author of two volumes on " The law of Population" 
assumes as his fundamental position, " that the fecundity of human 
beings is inversely as their numbers on a given area" — the greater the 
space, the greater the increase ! This doctrine is as clearly opposed 
to the facts developed in America, as any doctrine can be. Nor is the 
doctrine, founded on Food, completely satisfactory ; it does not account 
for the phenomena in question. Indeed, according to a late writer, 
Mr. Doubleday, an abundance or plethora of food is the true cause of 
the extinction of both animals and plants. His work has for its title, 
" The true law of Population, shown to be connected with the Food of 
the People" Hence, he attempts to account for the extinction of the 
English nobility and the decline among the Quakers, on the assumption, 
that "plethora of food prevents increase" ! The Nobility eat too much ! 
— a fault, sometimes, charged against Americans, though, as yet, no 
infecundily has been observed among them, nor among their domestic 
animals. Mr. D's doctrine, if true, would be very acceptable to lazy 
farmers, who wish to increase their live stock, since it goes to show 
that an abundance of food will not be necessary, nay, will be mis- 
chievous by " preventing increase." In the magnificent countries of 
South America, the cattle multiply as the sand on the sea shore, though 
food is in abundance, while man alone is stationary, or is declining. 

Everywhere, says Humboldt, " in the Spanish colonies, the places 
the first peopled are now the most desert."* This downward tendency 
of all the races, white, black, red, and mixed, is not arrested by exu- 
berance of food, nor by moderation, nor by scarcity, nor by the diffusion 
of population, nor by the concentration of population, nor by any known 
modification of climate, as will be seen hereafter. 

Has not the monarchial principle, (including under that term the hier- 
archy, and the miscalled republicanism of the South,) retarded the de- 
velopment of population ? A rapid survey of several countries where 
monarchy has prevailed in the new Continent, may prove acceptable, 
even if it fail to demonstrate the hypothesis under consideration. It is 
not intended to discuss the ecclesiastical polity of the South, so funda- 
mentally different from that of the North. The hierarchy, in itself, in 
its divine mission, is not within the pale of vital statistics, except so far 
as it becomes an accelerating or a retarding element in the science of 
population. The military despotisms, called republics, have not, prac- 
tically speaking, attained to the North American representative prin- 
ciple, any more than the Ottoman Empire. With respect to the 
Southern hierarchy, Humboldt says, after personal observation, " that 

* Narrat vh\ 136. 



the feeble civilization introduced by the Spanish Monks pursue- a 
retrograde course." (Nar. v. 117.) 

The population of Mexico, is now loss than it was throe centuries 
ago, the white race not exceeding one million, perhaps not 800,000, 
Peru has less than a million* of all colors, and is depopulating, parti- 
cularly with reference to the white race, which latter does not equal 
the population of Cincinnati. Lima, founded in 1534, has fewer souls 
than the second Municipality of New Orleans. 

Bolivia, and Chili, each, contain but little over a million, while 
Buenos Ayres or the Argentine Republic, does not contain a quarter 
of a million, and, of the numerous republics, (13), composing the Ar- 
gentine Confederation, some contain only ten thousand inhabitants, 
three under 20,000, seven under 40,000, and none reaching one hun- 
dred thousand, except Paraguay, which has only a nominal connection 
with the confederation. Mr. Macgregor, mentions one of these states, 
Missiones, as having declined from one hundred thousand to ten 
thousand ! 

The Republic of Uruguay, upon 09,000 square miles, has onlyl 15,000 
inhabitants, many of whom have estates containing from 60,000 to 
200,000 cattle.f Central America one and a half millions, only 1 in 3 2 of 
whom are white. Venezuela covers 410,000 square miles, and had in 
1800, according to Humboldt and Lavaysse, 900,000 inhabitants, but in 
1841 the Minister of the Interior reported the number at 887,168, a de- 
crease ofneprly 13,000. The Cities of Caraccas and Valencia have now 
about the same number of inhabitants as in 1810, the latter founded in 
1555, has only 10,000. 

Venezuela, upon an area of 410,000 square miles, had in 1800 only 
900,000 inhabitants, but in 1841, according to the Minister of the 
Interior, the number had declined to 887,168. " The people of the 
United States," says Mr. Macgregor, " would people a thoroughly new 
country of equal extent and riches as Venezuela, with an equal popu- 
lation in less than ten years." This is one of the best wheat coun- 
tries.:): M. Lavaysse says, that here may be seen associations of 
horses, in companies and armies, ranging from 500 to 1,000, regularly 
commanded by three or four chiefs of their number, which send out 
advanced scouts, placing a guard in the rear, all marching four abreast, 
ready to attack their enemies, as the jaguars, and even man, upon 
whom they leap. Upon the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, three millions of 
these animals roam without owners. § Man, I repeat it, is alone 
unprogressive. The cities of Valencia, Caraccas, Truxillo, and many 
others, founded nearly three centuries ago, have not advanced, nay, 
have in many cases declined greatly in population, in modern times. 

French Guayana, 22,000 square miles, had in 1834 only 22,000 

* Capt. Wilkes : Macgregor gives a higher estimate. 

f Macgregor. Prog. Amer. i. 10 34. 

| According to Humboldt, New Grenada, Buenos Ayres, and other portions 
of South America yield from 3,000 to 3,200 pounds of wheat per acre — four 
times as much as Northern countries — the French soil yielding only from 1,000 
to 1,200 pounds. (Narrative. 7 vols., London, 181 1 to 1829.) 

8 lb. 



mm\ti — Dutch Guayana, 50,000 sq. miles, 83,000 — English Guayana 
76,000 square miles, settled in 1580, population in 1847 — 4,000 
whites ; Coolies and colored 94,000 — Republic of Ecuador 320,000 
square miles ; population in 1827, but 492,000 ; in 1846 only 550,000 
of all races — the whites were one-fourth. 

The Villa de Upata, the Capital of the Missions to Santa Maria, was 
founded in 1762. Thirty-five years after it contained only 657 souls, 
and in 1803 it had increased only 112. In four other towns mentioned 
by Humboldt, in twenty-one years ending in 1818, the population had 
declined one-third. 

The city of Para, l-£° south of the equator, at the mouth of the 
greatest river of the world, of unknown depth, was founded 103 years 
before New Orleans, and had, according to Mr. Edwards, only 15,000 
souls in the year 1846, (voy. 25.) Mr. E. says, this river affords from 
40,000 to 50,000 miles of navigation. " The climate being peculiarly 
healthy, there being no kind of epidemic, — its valley being as much 
superior to that of the Mississippi as the latter is to that of the Hudson." 
; (249,250.) Brazil covers an area nearly as large as Europe — about 
fifty-six times larger than Louisiana — nearly twenty-three times larger 
than the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and possesses (as the Rev. 
Mr. Kidder, in his new work asserts,) " not only whatever is beautiful, 
whatever is luxuriant, and whatever is magnificent in nature, but it 
enjoys a pleasant and salubrious climate — a degree of healthfulness 
unknown, &c," (ii, 387.) He quotes M. Denis as showing " that the 
influence of the climate and scenery is peculiarly calculated to inspire 
sublimity of thought, and to promote the power of the imagination," 
(ii, 397.) Mr. Edwards, after personal observation, says that "the 
climate of that country is singularly healthy, the heat being less 
oppressive under the equator than in New York." The estimates of 
the population of Brazil differ, ranging from 2|- to 4| millions, of all 
colors. The former population was far greater, without doubt. The 
Huguenots in 1555 attempted to colonize Brazil. Their poor success 
was, doubtlessly, owing to the very despotism, which they, like our more 
fortunate ancestors, sought to escape in the wilds of the west. I will 
not stop here to show that the political principle of the North was 
rather the cause than the effect of the liberal ecclesiastical polity 
which prevails, and which is now more thoroughly democratic, in some 
of the churches than in any of the States. The political principle 
divorced the ecclesiastical, not the ecclesiastical the political, as an 
element or essential condition of the government — a divorce that has 
proved most beneficial. The connection of the Church and the State 
exerts an unfavorable influence upon the science of population, greater 
than famine, as the sequel may show. 

The whole of Spanish America, North and South, including the 
West Indies, under the monarchy, did not probably exceed fifteen mil- 
lions of souls, reckoning the white, red, black and mixed races. Of 
this number about one fifth, equal to the present population of the State 
of New York, were whites. Balbi, and some others, estimate the 
entire population of the American Continent at thirty-nine millions ; 
Malte-Brun at forty-five. South of the United States, including insular 
America, I estimate the number at twenty millions, one-third being in 



Mexico; five out of twenty millions being white. This estimate is 
based, not upon geographies, but upon the most recent books of travel 
and upon the best documents. These differ, however, greatly. 

Thus it appears, that in three centuries, the entire Caucasian race in 
both Americas, South of the United States, has not equalled numeri- 
cally, that portion of the Union lying West of the Alleghany mountains, 
settled by the present generation amid the conflicts of prolonged savage 
wars with the bravest and most sanguinary nations known in all history. 

The vital statistics of South America, indicates extinction, or at least, 
decline as the probable resultants of the monarchical and military 
despotisms which have prevailed, and still prevail upon the fairest 
portion of the globe. Statistical writers, in Europe, struck with these 
astonishing facts, are beginning to speak strongly upon this subject, 
and boldly to declare, that the absorption of these countries by the 
Northern Republic, is inevitable as a political event, and desirable as a 
vital one. The morality of this question does not belong to vital 
statistics. " The Anglo-American republic," says Mr. Macgregor, in 
his late work on America, will overwhelm the whole hemisphere, from 
Hudson's Bay to Terra del Fuego. This is no prophecy. It is a clear 
daylight forecast of that not-to-be-arrested progress which is the inevi- 
table destiny of America," (i, 199.) 

This gentleman, Her Majesty's Secretary of the Board of Trade, 
adds, (this subject may be alluded to again,) as follows : " The 
inhabitants of the four New England Provinces were principally the 
descendants of those stubborn republicans, who fled from England to 
enjoy their own ideas of politics and religion. They retained the 
haired of their ancestors to hereditary kingly authority, and the 
strongest aversion to any endowed hierarchy." The hatred of arbi- 
trary power, either in a political or religious form, was certainly the 
predominant cause of the emigrations that peopled Anglo- America." — « 
(i, 173, 187.) 

Mr. Macgregor, in his recent work on " Commercial Statistics, " 
draws the following picture of Spain : " The mass of the people are 
illiterate, superstitious, and accustomed to reverence and obey the 
clergy, and to respect and depend on the higher ranks. The popular 
lion decreased from idleness, and from the superstitions and pride of the 
Grandees and even Hidalgoes, (a species of squirearchy claiming noble 
alliance,) who preferred their sons being ecclesiastics or even monks, 
rather than having the one or the other engaged in industrious, rational, 
and natural occupations ; agriculture was neglected ; the national 
power sunk, &c. In 1803, the population was 10,268,000," (not half 
the number of 1380) — " of this number, the clergy, monks, nuns, and 
officers of the Inquisition amounted to 203,298, or 1 in 50 — the Nobles 
to one million four hundred and forty thousand, or one in seven!" — - 
(ii. 946, 943.) 

The decay of Spain is not to be explained by its epidemics, or sani- 
tory history, but by its political and social organization. Had her 
colonial governments been constructed after the North American type, 
the Hispano-American race would probably have now exceeded one 
hundred and fifty millions, from the Mississippi to Rio de la Plata — from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, instead of presenting, after a trial of more 



than three and a hajf centuries, under auspices tlie most favorable, a 
most deplorable spectacle of vital decline, nay, of disorganization, if not 
of decomposition. 

Passing from Spain to England, I would ask : Has not the popu- 
lation of England itself constantly increased as despotism diminished '? 
Until times comparatively recent, England was not a populous country. 
During two centuries ending in 1575, the population scarcely doubled 
itself, having increased from two and a half millions to four millions six 
hundred thousand. It did not again double itself until 1801, a period of 
two hundred and twenty-five years! (Loud. Quart. Rev.) Indeed, 
Mr. Alison says, that for fifteen centuries previous to the reign of 
Henry V, the population hardly tripled — a ratio of increase from 
twenty to thirty times slower than that of the United States. The 
population of England, from 1700 to 1710, declined from 5,134,516 to 
5,000,337— more than 08,000 !* According to Mr. Hallam, {History 
Liter.) King, in 1G01, estimated that the population of England would 
not double before A. D. 2300. 

In modern times, the increase of population in Ireland, has been 
considerable, while the physical comforts and material wealth, have 
been more inaccessible to the masses than in any other country in 
Europe, not excepting France. f Is not the tendency to republicanism 
stronger in Ireland than in any other portion of the United Kingdom ? 
Without pretending that an affirmative answer would afford a satisfac- 
tory explanation, it may be asserted, that the usual explanation is little 
short of ridiculous, namely, that the Irish having nothing to eat, take to 
matrimony as the only pleasure that remains tor them ! as if the mul- 
tiplication of mouths, could remove starvation ! Common sense, and 
Mr. Malthus, recommend the opposite line of conduct, for everywhere, 
even among savages, poverty is an impediment to marriage. Accord- 
ing to Mr. Doubleclay, the English Nobility decline, and become 
extinct from a full diet, while, according to others, starvation causes the 
utmost fecundity among the Irish ! Can it be possible, that the most 
refined and the best educated classes of nobility in the world, kill, or 
emasculate themselves with downright gluttony, while the unreasoning 
animals — for Mr. D. includes both animals and plants in the category, 
multiply in South America, upon a "plethora" of grass to such an 
extent, that Humboldt points out a plain, containing twelve millions 
of cows IX 

It may be proper, in order to illustrate this subject more fully, to take 
a rapid survey of the dynamical condition of the population in several 
countries, where data, of an authentic character, are the most ready of 
access — a survey which must necessarily be brief, and, which will, it 
is hoped, be of suggestive, if not of demonstrative value. 

* Finlaison. Milner's Elevation, People. 72. London, 1846. 

f The Vital Statistics of France must not be studied in books of travel, but 
in the works of the able statisticians of that country, including the official 
Reports of the Minister of Interior, &c. The destitution in the greater num- 
ber of the Departments, would be almost incredible, were it not too well 
authenticated to admit of a doubt. 

\ The first horned cattle were sent into the Llanos, according to Humboldt. 
in 1548, 



The British monarchy — the host in the world— the most favorable to 
vital progression, produces, nevertheless, in this connection, disastrous 
results throughout its entire colonial possessions. As to the once 
colonies, now called the United States, historians greatly err in taking 
the Declaration of Independence in its literal sense, as if the 4th of 
July, 1778, were the era when the Pleiads of the British Empire in the 
Western Hemisphere, shot from the Constellation of Taurus (the Bull) 
to an entirely new position in the political heavens. Practically 
speaking, independence, and the representative principle had always 
existed, though it had remained as the unwritten law — (lex non scripta.) 
The declaration, with its resultant, the constitution, laid the foundation, 
not of the representative practice, but of the lex scripta — of the written 
decalogue, of the exteriorations of nationality, and of international 
recognition. This fact in the history of American government, deserves 
more attention than has hitherto been, given to it by writers. It is 
true, Mr. Bancroft in his excellent history of the Colonization of the 
United States, incidentally mentions that the. form of Government estab- 
lished in Connecticut , in 1639, does not deviate essentially from the 
present* 

Merope's dim star is a type of that colony governed by the British 
monarchy, so far as vital dynamics is concerned. This fact, so melan- 
choly in a statistical point of view, I prove by the admissions of the best 
authorities among British writers. British power has predominated 
for nearly a century in India, and now rules more than one hnndred 
millions of semi-barbarians who crouch before it, while it numbers, of 
the entire Caucasian race, only one for every five hundred inhabitants 
of the United States. The census of 1S43, showed a decline in the popu- 
lation of Calcutta. More than half a century ago, it was reckoned, at 
from 500,000 to 700,000— in 1752 at 409,05(>. The census of 1822, 
gave only 179,916f— a decline of 230,000. 

" In the East Indies the European races, French, Danes, Portugese, 
and British do not exceed 40,000, including the Queen's regiments ; — 
35,000 of whom are in the employment of the government. "J 



* In his sophistical work, (just from the press,) against Democracy, M. 
Guizot attributes American republicanism to Washington, and a few gentlemen 
of Washington's selection, and maintains that Washington had no confidence 
in the people ! Washington was only the worthy representative of the popular 
mind. The whole country was full of Washingtons. M. Guizot may be 
sincere in this statement, but how will he account to his conscience and to 
history for his late attempt to identify Democracy in France with M. Proud- 
hon's doctrine, that property is a crime — that God is evil only, and that man, 
in despite of God, becomes virtuous ? " If there were no God," said Voltaire' 
"we should be obliged to invent one :" (Si Dim n'existoit pas il faudroi 
I'inventer.) M. Guizot ought to know, must know, that M. Proudhon's doc- 
trine of God's malevolence and of man's benevolence, so harmless from its very 
absurdity, has not received the sanction of the people, any more than that of 
the ex-minister himself. The prevalence of such a doctrine would probably 
lead to the most disastrous results in vital progress. 

f Encyc. Brit. 

I Geog. By Messrs. Smith. Rose. Laurie, Galloway, and Drs. Nicholl and 
Balfour. Edinburgh, 1844, p. 698-9. The very latest authorities give, I 
believe, the enumeration, already given. 

2 



10 

Canada, to which emigration is invited by rewards from the crown 1 , 
and in which more immigrants are received than in any other similar 
community, is thus spoken of in a recent work by Messrs. Chambers of 
Edinburgh, — a work in which a predilection in favor of British institutions, 
is not concealed: "In comparing Canada with the (United) Slates, 
every intelligent traveller allows, that the citizens of the Union are 
infinitely more active than the subjects of Great Britain. Within the 
colonial territories, all public works, and most of the settlements, pro- 
ceed slowly, the system seeming to be rather inert ; while on the States' 
side of the boundary, every species of work proceeds with the most 
astonishing rapidity, canals being cut, railways formed, and towns built, 
in an inconceivably brief space of time. As Upper Canada has nearly 
the same natural advantages as the States, and as the people, it may be 
presumed, are as well educated and as generally intelligent, it would 
seem that the true cause of the difference we specify is in the mode of 
conducting public affairs" Is it not the monarchical principle, in the 
one case, which retards, as it is the representative principle in the other 
case which accelerates the movement of the population? Do not these 
principles stand in the same antagonistic relations that the vis inertia 
bears to the moving forces in the material world 1 According to the 
savans of Edinburgh, in the new Universal Geography, the Canadas, 
in 1844, contained only 893,684 souls, notwithstanding the enormous 
vital importations to those countries for centuries. 

Leaving the cold climate of Canada on the one side of the United 
States, for South America and the West Indies on the other, it will be 
found that the British possessions as well as those of other monarchical 
powers— -I say it will be found that these colonies, abounding, nay exu- 
berant in all the luxuries of tropical climates, are actually decaying, or are 
nearly stationary, perhaps tending to extinction, — a conclusion that will 
scarcely be deemed unwarrantable after examining the data which 
follow, and which are taken almost at random from many : English 
Guayana with an area of 76,000 square miles, settled in 1580, contained 
in 1847, but 4,000 whites, with coolies, blacks, and mixed races 
amounting to 94,000. 

The British colony called the Belize or Honduras, in America, situa- 
ted between 15° 54' and 18° 30' N. Lat., containing 16,400 square 
miles, and never visited by the yellow fever,* had by the returns of 
1845, only 399 whites ; the total population W 7 as 10,709. 

In many of the British West India Islands, the population is either 
stationary or declining, particularly as it regards the Black race. The 
following statistical memoranda are taken chiefly from the Library of 
Useful Knowledge, by Mr. Porter, and Professors Long and Tucker, on 
America and the West Indies, and from Mr. Macgregor* (Lond. 1845. 
1847.) In St. Vincent the decrease by deaths, beyond the number 
replaced by births, during 14 years ending in 1831, was 2,579, or not 
quite | per cent per annum, hi Dominica for 9 years ending in 1826, 
*he deaths exceeded the births 662, in a population of 17,959. The total 
population of all the races in Nevis, in 1788, was 1(1,070, — in 1836 only 
1)250 ; the deaths having exceeded the births among slaves, in 14 years 

i<; See Macgregor's Progress of America, Lond. 1847 — a voluminous work. 



1 1 



ending- in 1831, by 213 in a population of 9602, and in 3 years after, 
by 327. In Jamaica, from 1817 to 1832, the slaves constantly declined — 
from 346,150 to 302,666 5 — a decrease of 43,481, or much over one 
eighth ! 

In St. Christopher, from 1817 to 1831, the same class decreased 344 
in 20,168. Martinique, a French West Indian Island, has, among the 
whites, free blacks, and colored, 37 deaths to 29 births,— among slaves 35 
deaths to 32 births. Guadaloupe, (French,) on December 31st 1835, 
contained 31,252f ree persons, and 96,323 slaves,— among the former 
there were but 28 births for 34 deaths ! 

Nevis, from 1809, to 1823, was nearly stationary ; the last period 
gives 11,000; the census of 1812, gave 10,430. Grenada had a total 
population, in 1823, of 29,000,— the slaves 25,000 ; in 1791, the whites 
1,000,— in 1823 only 900 ; in 1815, slaves 29,381,— in 1820 only 25,677 
in 1823, only 25,000. The slaves in St. Vincent, in 1817, were 
25,255, in 1820, only 24,252, in 1823 only 24,000. In Dominica in 
1805, the total population was 25,031, in 1823 only 20,000— slaves at 
the former period 22,083, at the latter 16,000; free colored, atthe former 
4,416, atthe latter 2988. Montserrat, in 1805, had 9500 slaves, — in 1812 
only 6,534, in 1823 only 1500 ; in 1805, free, 1250 ; in 1812 only 442 ! 
In the Virgin Islands in 1788, the slaves were 9,000, in 1823 only 6,000 ! 
Tobago, in 1805 had 14,883 ; in 1811 it had 16,897; in 1817 only 
15,470 ; in 1820, but 14581, and in 1823, only 14,000; from 1815 to 
1823 the total population declined from 18,000 to 16,000. Trinidad, 
perhaps declined less than any other Island, at the period now under 
consideration, (a period long anterior to the great emancipation act), 
yet the slaves in 1817 were 25,941, in 1823 only 23,500. St. Lucia 
contained in 1788 a total population of 20,968, in 1810 only 17,485, 
in 1823 only 17,000; at the former period the slaves were 17,221, at the 
latter 13,000. The Bahamas, in 1810 contained a total population of 
16,718, in 1823 only 15,500. Thus during this period every British 
West India Island, exhibited a more or less rapid decay. 

Hayti, French and Spanish, has shown a vital progression unknown 
to the British possessions : Humboldt, estimated its population at 
820,000, others at a million anterior to 1823, since which it has proba- 
bly declined. Macgregor, in 1847, estimated the population at 700,000, 
a decline of 120,000 in 24 years ; the slave population alone was esti- 
mated by Necker, in 1788, for that Island at 620,000. The 6ther West 
India Islands belonging to the Spanish, French, and Dutch, do not 
differ materially from the British ; Cuba is the most prosperous, but if 
the vast and disproportionate importation of negroes be deducted, 15,000 
to 26,000 per annum, it will be seen that the principle of population is 
not really progressive. 

The Registers of 12 English West India Islands, for 3 years ending 
in 1822, show a decline of 1 in 46 slaves, for that short period, that is, 
from 617,799 to 604,444 ; in some other islands the decline was 1 in 12 
in 3 years ! 

Humboldt has summed up the population of the British West Indies, 
to the close of 1823. Total, 776,500 ; slaves 626,800. The total in 
1788 was 528,302 ; in 1812—732,176 ; (Colquhoun)— the slaves having 
been 634,096, nearly the same as in 1788, notwithstanding the vast 



12 

numbers introduced; for in 10 years ending in 178G, no fewer than 
610,000 were imported to that Island (Bryan Edwards.) Jamaica in 
1734, had 80,146 slaves,— 7044 whites; in 1800, slaves 300,939; in 1810, 
slaves 320,000 ; in 1812 only 319,912 ; in 1815 only 313,814 ; in 1816 
but 314,038. From 1787 to 1808, the number of slaves imported to the 
island, in addition to the above, amounted to 188,785, altogether in 108 
years 676,785, (other authorities say 850,000), and yet, there exists in 
Jamaica not the half of that number. The whites in 1787 numbered 
28,000, in 1791 only 30,000, in 1820 only 25,000, in 1816, free colored 
45,000, in 1820 only 35,000. Barbadoes, 1823, total 100,000, slaves 
79,000; in 1786 the slaves were 79,220, in 1811 only 79,132 ; in 1811 
whites 15,794, in 1823 only 16,000 ; in 1805 the free colored 17,300, 
in 1823 only 5.000. Antigua, in 1823, contained 40,000 souls,— 31,000 
were slaves ; in 1815 the slaves were 36,000, — in 1820 only 31,053. 
Saint Christopher contained, in 1823, a total population of 23,000; slaves 
19,500 ; the slaves in 1805 were 26,000, at which time the total popu- 
lation was 30,300, showing a decline of more than one third in 18 years. 
"In several of the West India Islands." says Humboldt, "under the 
English domination, the population diminishes 5 or 6 per cent annually." 
(Narative. vii. 135.) 

According to Humboldt, Gallatin, and others, it appears, that pre- 
vious to 1786, the British had imported into their West India Islands, 
2,130,000 African slaves. The whole importation of that race in the 
United States, from first to last, was, according to Mr. Gallatin, only 
300,000. Thus the British West Indies, settled a century before North 
America, received more than seven times the number of slaves ever 
received in the United States, yet, in 1823, under British management, 
only 627,777 remained ! More than one million and a half had dis- 
appeared ! One million and a half less than the original importations ! 
The greatest of all physiological curses is the death, or the extinguish- 
ment of a race. This was not the fault of the negroes; they were 
under the control of their masters. Left to themselves, they are so far 
as facts can guide the inquirer, alike incapable of rational republican 
or monarchial government. Their experiment in St. Domingo has 
failed to secure the great objects of all good government. Of the free 
blacks of the United States, it is not necessary to speak fully, as the 
subject is too extensive for this paper. Impartial travellers, and statis- 
tical writers, admit that their condition, whether regarded in a social, 
or sanitory point of view, is deplorable in the extreme. Emancipation 
suddenly arrests their vital progress, longevity, psychological energy* 
and physical improvement. Their numerical increase is not inherent, 
but extraneous, and contingent, arising from absconding and manumit- 
ted slaves. Insanity, idiotcy, pauperism,* disease, short life, and speedy 
death, everywhere mark the downward progress of free blacks, — I ought 
to except those of New Orleans, who are not only long lived, but 
healthy, wealthy, moral and progressive. 

M. De Tocqueville,f a profound observer, and an opponent of slavery, 
says, of the slave, — " if he becomes free, independence is often felt by 

* See the Census of the United States. 
j Democracy in America, i. 336. 386. 405. 



13 

him to be a heavier burden than slavery. The prejudices of the whites 
against the blacks increase in proportion as slavery is abolished. The 
inhabitants of the north avoid the negroes with increasing care, in pro- 
portion as the legal barriers of separation are removed by the legisla- 
ture." 

The Statistics of New York, and of Philadelphia, and of other cities 
where free blacks abound, show that the average mortality is more 
than twice as high among them as among the whites, and, I may add, 
slaves. Professor Lee, and Dr. Emerson, have published able papers 
upon this subject. The distinguished Mr. Lyell, of England, after per- 
sonal observation, admits, that experience has fully proved, that eman- 
cipation checks the increase of the black race, and, that the increase of 
slaves shows that they are not in a state of discomfort, oppression and 
misery. 

The moral bearings of this matter ought to be paramount to vital 
statistics, no doubt — the latter, however, is the only one now properly 
under review, and the result is one of the most extraordinary in the 
natural history of man, namely, that 300,000 Africans under republican 
and domestic government and management, should increase in a few 
generations to three or four millions, presenting, at the same time a 
greater number of long lived, healthful persons, than any people of 
Europe, not excepting the most iavored classes. Experience shows 
that up to the present time, all monarchial governments have not only 
failed to advance the vital condition of the negro, but they have actually 
contributed towards his extinction, and though the precise cause of this 
is not very manifest, yet, it seems that one of the essential conditions 
of his decline belongs to the form ot government. 

The Liberian experiment has been conducted not only with liberality, 
but with skill and energy, yet, after a trial of twenty six years, made 
under the most favorable auspices, the total population of the republic 
of Liberia, according to the last report of the Colonization Society, was 
only 18,000, including the blacks sent from the United States, as well as 
those captured from the slave traders, and those natives of Africa who 
are citizens of the colony. Should this experiment in self government 
prove successful, as the friends of humanity ardently desire, it will be 
one of the greatest achievements of the age.* Millions will spring to 
life in the deserts of Africa. 

The human mind has not, for the most part, as yet, been able to 
trace with satisfactory clearness, the modes and the essential connections 
of causes and effects, particularly in vital phenomenology. It is, perhaps, 
much easier to show how monarchy causes a retardation of vital dyna- 
mics, than to show that peculiar state or meteorological condition which 
causes cholera. As nothing whatever is known of the cause of cholera, 
it would be, perhaps, rational to conclude that it is caused by Republica- 
nism, provided all history proved that this malady (other conditions 
being similar), always prevailed among republicans, but never among 
monarchists : so of insanity, sterility, scrofula, consumption, toothache, 

* In the vicinity of New Orleans, an opulent gentleman, Mr. McDonnough, 
has educated, emancipated and sent to Liberia, with ample means, about 100 
blacks, if I am not mistaken. 



14 

etc. In fact there is more proof of the deterioration of population by 
monarchy, than by swamp exhalation. Hence, it would be more 
philosophical to speak of the malaria of despotism than of swamps. 
And, if physiologists do not find this out, philosophers will. Mr. Alison, 
a crown officer, an able historian, and statistician, in his recent work 
on the Principles of Population, says, — "the visible decline of the 
human species has excited the most serious apprehensions throughout 
the whole Turkish Empire. The despotism of the East has destroyed 
more than all the Freedom of the West has created, ; the depopulation of 
Asia has more than counterbalanced the increase of Europe and the 
growth of the Trans-Atlantic world." From recent developments 
disclosing a rapid decrease in Turkey, several statistical writers anti- 
cipate the entire extinction of the nation, in one century ! 

Mr. Mackinnon, member of Parliament, in his able volumes on the 
History of Civilization, published in 1846, says, — " that the fundamen- 
tal cause of the low state of the population in Turkey, compared with 
its extent and territory, is undoubtedly the nature of the government." 
Yet, Turkey has all natural elements of progression. The Kingdom 
of Greece, has not half as numerous a population as the new state of 
Ohio. Russia, with all kinds of climates, and with great, nay unexam- 
pled territorial expansion, increases in population, very slowly, com- 
pared with the United States. The latter increases twice as fast as 
Great Britain, three times as fast as Germany, Italy, and Russia, and 
six times as fast as France.* Nor can this be called a vain boast, a 
mere numerical result, without a corresponding increase of the mental, 
social, and material elements of well being. 

Monarchy, statistically speaking, is destructive, even to itself ! not 
that the Queen of Spain, now, as formerly, is bound by etiquette to sit 
by a fire, until roasted, because no one below a duchess is allowed the 
honor of removing her chair from the fireplace — not that the Tzar 
declares war, because one of his numerous titles is omitted in a diplo- 
matic paper — not that he orders the Italian embassador's hat to be 
nailed on his head, because it had not been taken off soon enough. If 
the statistics of the fifty reigning families on the first day of January, 
1848, and consequently, before the recent republican demonstrations, 
be analyzed, it will be found, on comparing them with a similar num- 
ber of families, taken without discrimination in the American Union, 
that the former, not the latter class is retrograding. Of fifty sovereigns, 
(including the Pope, and the Emperor of Brazil,) all had been married 
but six — of these fifty, no less than thirty-six married with reigning 
families — one, three times, and eight twice-^of forty-four married 
sovereigns, twelve, (more than one-fourth) were childless — only thirty- 
one out of fifty, had heirs presumptive- — two-fifths of their crowns 
were liable to descend to collateral kindred, and one-tenth of the whole 
(not including the Pope) had no heir directly or collaterally ! The 
whole number of Royal births in 1847, was thirteen — the deaths four- 
teen. Among the whole, Victoria is probably the most fruitful — cer- 
tainly the most liberal and the most beloved at home and abroad. 

* The French population, according to M. D'Angeville, requires 139 year* 
to double itself. Statist. App. iii. Paris. 1837. 



15 

'th& North American Indians, though in the possession of the largest 
liberty, have no more republicanism among them than South American 
generals. The Indians are not fruitful, whether their food be scanty 
or plentiful ; this has always been so, and still continues. Mr. Catlin, 
who admires Indians, perhaps, more than most persons, and who spent 
eight years ending in 1340, with these people, and visited forty-eight 
nations, declares, " that it is very rare for an Indian woman to have 
more t\mnfour or jive children, and in no case ten or ticelve." (Am. 
Ind. ii, 288.) 

Practically, the monarchical principle retards the vital progression of 
a nation by withdrawing a vast proportion of the male population from 
domestic, to military life. Millions of able bodied men, in the prime 
of life, throughout Europe, have been hitherto kept constantly under 
arms, in time of peace, not to resist aggression from without, but the 
spirit of freedom from within. The fundamental principle of the Holy 
Alliance, namely, the arming and paying one portion of the population 
to keep the other in subjection to the will of the sovereign, is, statisti- 
cally speaking, a dead weight-— the vis inertia of vital dynamics, not to 
mention many other implied relations essential to the well being of 
society ; — for, it is evident, that so long as France, Austria, Prussia, 
Russia, and many other countries are so many great military camps, 
(whether called republican or not,) productive industry, and capital, and 
population, must be diminished or retarded, in a corresponding ratio. 
Whatever may be the organic laws of a country, that country is essen- 
tially anti-republican, if a large army be necessary for the protection of 
the government against its own citizens. The citizen not only creates, 
but perpetuates, and defends the government, chiefly by his vote, and, 
if need be, by the tribunals. The British Monarchy resists revolu- 
tionary action by opposing to it the constabulary and the magistracy — 
a truly republican method, which no declaration of rights, or paper 
constitutions, can dispense with. An army is an exterioration, not an 
internality of a republic — temporary and extraordinary organization — 
an occasional necessary evil. 

The military system of France under the monarchy — under the 
empire, and under what was called the republic,* goes far in the 
explanation of the slow vital progress of France— a country wherein 
the population does not double itself short of 139 years. f 

The Royal masters of France, for example, have for the last eight 
centuries, with few interruptions, kept up wars, civil or foreign. The 
flower of the population is always selected for the Moloch of war. The 
men of the best physical organization, alone, are received into the 
army to kill, or to be killed, for no rational purpose. Hence, as might 
be expected, the physical constitution of the French has degenerated. 
From 1799 to 1832, the minimum height required of recruits for the 

* The republican leaders of the former revolution, discovered that republi- 
can France had no republicans! Hence, Barrere said, " II y a une repub- 
lique — il n'y point a des republicans." Petion said there were only five repub- 
licans in France, including himself! 

f M. le comte A. D'Angeville. Essai sur la Statistiqiie do la population 
Franeaise. Paris. 1836-7, Append, iii. 



li 

army, has varied with the law, having ranged from 1 metre 540 milli 
metres, to 1 metre 599 millim.; during the wars of the empire it was 1 
metre 544 millim., that is 4 feet 9 inches, French.* Yet, notwith- 
standing this diminished stature, more than one-third of all the troops 
drafted for many years were found to be too low for the army ! Under 
the restoration of the Bourbons, 20,043, more than a third, were 
rejected from this cause alone, out of every 60,000 recruits. In some 
of the departments scarcely any are fit for the service : from 1825 to 
1833, for every 1,000 recruits, selecting ten out of the 85 departments, 
wherein the stature was minimized, the average number not sufficiently 
tall to enter the army, was 527, more than half; — the department of 
Haute-Vienne gave an average of 818, Correze 691, and some others 
nearly the same number of rejections in every l,000.f And what is 
still more extraordinary, other physical disqualifications are in nearly 
the same ratio : for every 80,000 men called to the service, 45,415, are 
found to be unfit from causes other than lack of stature, so that the 
quotas furnished by all the departments, average only 1,000 men in 
every 1927, when exemptions from all causes are enumerated I The 
influence of war upon the vital progression of population is strikingly 
shown in the history of Paris, In 1710, the population of Paris:): was 
490,000 ; in 1798 it had increased only 50,000 ; in 1802 k was 
672,000 ; in six years after, it was only 600,000, having decreased 
72,000, and in 1815, at the end of the war, it had fallen to 590,000. 
Two years of peace brought an increase of 134,596. and twenty-six 
years ending in 1841, added 329,126, making the total population of 
the city 909,126 — a contrast that must strike the statisticians, if not 
Ihe rulers of that renowned country. Marseilles, in 1790, contained 
106,585 souls, — in 1801 the number was 102,219, but it declined in 
1811 to 96,271 ; during a long peace, the population augmented, so 
that in 1846, it had nearly doubled, (compared with the sanguinary era 
of Napoleon's glory) having reached 183, 186. § 

"Deterioration of the French Population : All writers on political 
economy and agriculture who have published statistics, agree in think- 
ing that the population of France is daily losing bodily vigor. If you 
inquire in the manufacturing districts, you will be told by the owners 
of factories and works of all kinds, that the French workmen cannot do 
near so much work as the English or Americans. People connected 
with the recruiting of the army, will, also, distinctly state, that at no 
period were there so many men unfit for service as at the present time. 
Does the cause of all this lie in the bad or insufficient food which these 
people use? Half a million in Paris do not taste any animal food." 
(Lancet — quoted from the V Union Mddicale—June, 1848.) Is not the 
true reason to be sought for in the military operations during, and suc- 
ceeding tho former French revolution? 

A true Republic, I repeat, requires no army to maintain the authority 
of its own government, at home, because the people are the State. A 
musket in the legislative hall is as much out of place, as it would be at 
the Eucharist. No one in the United States has been convicted of rebel- 

* Essai bur la Stat, par M. D'Angeville, 47, 4to; Paris, 1837. 

j lb. \ Galignani's Paris. § Rev. des deux Mondes. 



17 

lion. How different from the military seniimentalism — it should be — 
despotism of the French Revolution, and its Imperial sequel by which 
sixty millions, in the prime of life^ were sacrificed ! What a sad check 
was that to vital dynamics! The Crusades cost forty— the Reforma- 
tion thirty millions ! 

As the American principle of government has no orthodoxy, it can 
have no heretics for the flames or the gibbet ; no one has attempted to 
overthrow it, though, in the theatre of its action, every element of col- 
lision is encountered to a greater extent than in almost any other 
country, owing to domestic institutions and local interests of an antago- 
nistic character. 

It is not deemed necessary, even had I the ability, to analyze the 
history of the world to prove that the American form of republicanism 
originated in this country — that the civil polity of no other nation 
ancient or modern had for its fundamental type, an organic law founded 
by the sovereign people, delegating a limited power to, and returnable 
from, the representative, at stated periods, the entire organization being 
founded solely upon the will and conscience of the majority. The 
originality of this discovery is due to Americans, as the ablest writers 
in Europe have the magnanimity to admit. This however, is an 
important element in the argument, for the negative proposition con 
firms, in a striking manner, the positive. It might be shown that as all 
the appreciable conditions of the vital masses of the United States, the 
representative principle excepted, have existed, or do exist in monar- 
chical countries without producing in the latter a high ratio of physico- 
vital progression, there is, and must be, in the former, a cause of 
acceleration altogether peculiar ; — -the difficulty of the explanation 
affords no invalidation of the fact itself. If, therefore, the representa- 
tive principle originated in, and is peculiar to, this country, it is proba- 
ble that this principle is the cause, or an element ill the composition of 
the causes concerned in the dynamics of population* 

Mr. Macgregor, in his new work on America* says, that the consti- 
tution of the United States, " is a constitution probably the nearest 
perfection, which the human Conception, forecast, and judgment of the 
human intellect is capable of producing." Lord Brougham, in his late 
voluminous and learned work on Political Philosophy, says, upon this 
subject, "that the commonwealths of ancient times had not in any part 
of their political system the representative principle ." Of the Indepen- 
dence, or rather of the constitution in which it resulted, he adds, — "this 
is, perhaps, the most important event in the history of our species. It 
animated freemen all over the world to resist oppression. It gave an 
example of a great people not only emancipating themselves without 
either a Monarch to control or an Aristocracy to restrain them, and 
demonstrated for the first time in the history of the world, contrary to all 
•predictions of statesmen and the theories of speculative inquirers, that a 
great nation, when duly prepared for the task, is capable of self-govern- 
ment, in other words, that a purely republican form of government can 
be founded and maintained in a country of vast extent, peopled by 
millions." " A pure democracy may well be the best government." — 
u Despotism effectually checks all improvement. The question of the 

3 



18 

form of Government is one of expediency or utility. This is the sole 
ground of the duty of obedience and the right of governing. The ques = 
tion of Resistance depends on this. The general good of the commu- 
nity, is the very governing principle of all right. 1 ' " The effects of 
Absolute Monarchy are general misery and corruption^'* 

That able and voluminous writer, Mr. Alison, says that the progress 
of the United States, " is altogether unexampled : This long continued 
and astonishing multiplication for two centuries is the most luminous 
fact which the history of the globe has yet exhibited." After the first 
disasters of the colonies had passed away, and a very moderate supply 
of the necessaries of life had been accumulated, mutual dangers, mutual 
interests, and mutual rights gave to society a peculiar organization, as 
well as a new impetus or a dynamic principle in vital statistics. The 
eloquent Bancroft thus speaks of the colonists : " the average duration 
of life, compared with Europe, was doubled; and the human race was 
so vigorous, that of all who were born into the world, more than two in 
ten and full four in nineteen, attained the age of seventy. Of those who 
lived beyond ninety, the proportion, as compared with European tables 
of longevity, was still more remarkable." (Hist. Col. U. S. i.) 

It may be said that a mere increase of population does not neces 
sarily increase the well-being of society, nay, might be accompanied 
with deterioration. Granted. It could be shown by multitudinous 
facts, that all the elements entering into the well-being of society, as 
well as that of increase, have progressively advanced. For examples 
take longevity and foundlingism as they exist in France, and in the 
United States — both statistical subjects — the latter having a moral 
aspect. 

As there is no official record of births and deaths in the United 
States, I will assume that centenarianism is a proof of longevity, that is to 
pay, of a long mean duration of life — a position I am ready to make good by 
the enumerations of those countries which have registries, though the 
late excellent Dr. Ferry maintained quite the contrary — having formed 
his opinion from the statistics of Geneva. That centenarianism, and a 
short mean duration of life, should be connected as cause and effect, 
would seem in the absence of the most indubitable proof, the most pre- 
posterous of all propositions, judging from analogy, and from numerical, 
values. For example, of two persons born, one dies at the end of a 
y ear — another at the end of a century — the mean life in that case will 
be 50-£ years. Until better proof be adduced than has been yet given, 
it may be safely affirmed that the number of centenarians in a given 
number of people, is presumptive proof of an extended mean life, and 
that positive data exist, warranting the conclusion that they are not 
incompatibiiites or antagonistics. The eighty-six Departments of 
France, present nothing to confirm, but much to overthrow this 
hypothesis ; for in those Departments where the mean life is shortest, 
centenarians are the fewest. As it is of great importance to establish 
this point, I submit the following laborious analysis of a part of my 



* Polit. Philos. iii, 38, 329, i, 82, 71, 155. Lond., 1844. 



19 

statistical data. These facts I obtain from the able work of D'Ange- 
ville, and others — their use, in this relation, so far as is known to me, 
now appears for the first time. I am not aware that any of the French 
statisticians have entertained the question of the antagonism between a 
long mean life and centenarianism. In 1836, the mean duration of 
life for the eighty-six Departments was thirty-six years and seven 
months. The census shows that centenarianism is maximized in the 
department of Ariege, where the mean life exceeds the general mean 
of the kingdom, nearly two years, and where it exceeds that of the 
Seine, (Paris.) ten years : in the latter, both centenarianism and the 
mean duration of life are minimized. The whole nation aflbrds but 
140 centenarians, which, being divided among eighty-six departments, 
give nearly one and a half to each. Selecting seventeen departments, 
wherein there are 5,516,378 souls, less than one-sixth of the whole 
population of the Kingdom, I obtain eighty-six centenarians, that is, 
sixteen more than all the remaining sixty-nine departments, affording 
to each department a mean of nearly five centenarians ; yet six out of 
these seventeen, are not only the richest of all in centenarians, but 
give a mean life of 43-g- years, — about seven years beyond the mean of 
all France : and the mean of the whole seventeen wherein centenarians 
are maximized, exceeds the general mean nearly two years. This 
-proof, sti»ng in itself, is confirmed by pursuing another route. Take 
those twelve departments, (I omit their names for the sake of brevity,) 
containing about one-eighth of the total population, wherein no cen- 
tenarians are found, and we obtain a mean life of thirty-four years and 
seven months, exactly two years less than the mean of ail France, and 
about four years less than that of the seventeen departments, which 
contain four-sevenths of the whole mass of centenarians. In the six- 
teen departments where the mean life is minimized, (the lowest depart- 
ment being 28f years, the highest 32f,) the general mean being only 
31^, no less than five have no centenarians whatever. 

By another process, we may arrive at the conclusion that centena- 
rianism is not antagonistic to a high average life, — at least, in France. 
In the sixteen departments wherein the mean life is longest, Orne being 
the highest of this series, that is, forty-nine years and two months, 
and Gironde the lowest, forty years and ten months, averaging 43^ 
years, it will be found, that centenarianism is three times more preva- 
lent, than in a similar series, of sixteen departments, wherein the 
average life is shortest. This proof is complete, with one exception, 
namely, the ratios between centenarianism and an extended mean life, 
do not, in every case, exactly correspond. In a great degree, they go 
hand in hand ; at least, they never oppose each other. It is highly 
probable, that nothing more is wanting than correct and extended 
registries, to show a connection between a high expectation of life, a 
long average life, and an augmented proportion of centenarians. 

According to the census of 1831, France contained only 140 cente- 
narians. The Bills of Mortality indicate a much smaller proportional 
number. M. Demonferrand* has analysed the total number of deaths 



Cornp. Rend, 1835. 



20 

in that country, from the age of three months, up to 106 years, during 
a period of fifteen vears, ending on the first of January 3832,— the 
mean number of the population having been 31,322,000 during this 
period, — the mean annual mortality 786,219. The total number of 
deaths, 11,793,289, afforded only 25 centenarians, or about one in 
half a million ! Taking the most favorable number, that of the census, 
the proportion of centenarians to the whole population, is one in every 
quarter of a million, nearly. 

In the French Encyclopaedia,* M. Leclerc says, that the number of 
centenarians in the United States, according to the census of 1830, 
amounted to 508 ; but even this number astonished him, and caused 
him to exclaimW Explain this who can !"f His astonishment ought 
to have been more than five times greater, — for, the true number was 
two thousand six hundred and fifty four. 

At the census of 1840, the number of centenarians had increased to 
2,771 ; or, as 1 is to 6,157 ; that is, forty times more than in France, 
and nearly 10^ times more than in England, and Wales ; according to 
the census of 1841, centenarians had diminished in the latter country, 
nearly one third, since the preceding census, compared with the popu- 
lation of that country and Scotland combined. 

The following table will still further illustrate this point, and will 
complete all that is thought necessary, on this occasion, to prove that 
republicans, farjfrom being a short-lived race — far from deteriorating, 
surpass, in this rsspect, monarchists : Centenarian ratios to the entire 
populations of several countries wherein the numerical data have been 
the most accurately determined : 

United States, in 1830, had 1 centenarian in every 4,847 persons ; 

in 1840, had 1 " " 6,157 " 

Scotland, in 1831, had 1 " " 19,607 " 

England & Wales, " had 1 " " 55,555 " 

Ireland, " * had 1 " " 19,773 " 

France, " " had 1 " " 250,000 " 



* Diet, de la Conversation. T. xxxix. Paris. 

f Foreigners either cannot, or will not understand the affairs of the United 
States. At this mordent, I have before me a statistical work, on the Philoso- 
phy of Death, (London 1841), by Dr. Reid, in which the author quotes and 
adopts from M. Quetlet, a celebrated statistician of Belgium, " the statistics of 
the State of Boston" — " of the Stale of Philadelphia" — " of the State of Balti- 
more'''! A late British traveller describes from personal observation, the New 
Canal, of New Orleans, as being a very straight Bayou ! The Edinburgh 
Encyclopaedia says that several meteoric stones fell in the Province of Con- 
necticut, in 1807. A celebrated American nqvelist was frequently compli- 
mented in England because he spoke English so well ! An eloquent writer 
informed me that he had received similar compliments ; was asked, by a young 
man of large estate, a graduate of Oxford, " How many Lords there were in 
the United States ?" Dr. Physick, the Father of American surgery, was 
generally called in France " a doctor," or " a physician," and, not by his 
proper name. 

There are scarcely any medical writers of note in Paris, whose works are 
not read by many American Physicians. Dr. Stewart, in his. work on the 
Hospitals of Paris, (1843), says, 4; few of the French physicians think highly 
enough of American authorities to quote them." 



21 

Hence, assuming the births to bear the same numerical ratio to the 
entire population in these three great nations, it follows, that every 
child born in the American Republic, has 10-£ chances more than a 
British infant, and 40 chances more than a French one, that it will live 
one hundred years or more, — and, assuming still further, that centena- 
rian life is an evidence of the expectation or probability of life, it fol- 
lows, that the population of the United States has not in respect to the 
.duration of life, degenerated, but has improved greatly, while the Sta- 
tistics of England show that the Nobility are shorter lived than the 
working men.* 

Compare the population of England, or of France, to that of the 
United States, and, it will be found, that in the various relations of the 
social and vital conditions, no deterioration has been observed. 
Take foundlingism, in France — a statistical not less than a 
moral evil — a statistical evil— because nearly all the foundlings, after 
a short struggle with disease, sink into an untimely grave, — a statistical 
evil almost unknown in the United States. It must be remembered 
that Foundlings, (Enfants trouves et abandonnes), in France are 
abandoned by their parents, not put upon the Parish as in England, 
among the poor. A distinguished savant and Minister of the Interior 
in the late monarchy of France, showsf that the abandoned foundlings 
have more than tripled since the French Revolution, in 1789, when 
the number was 40,000 per annum : the following is the official 
account for each year from 1819 to 1833. 

foundlings 114,384 
114,307 
115,472 
118,073 
" 123,869 

" 127,982 

129,699^ 

The foundling system in the monarchies of Europe, is not only 
demoralizing— " une action demoralisante" as the French Minister, 
Gasparin, terms it, but is a great and growing cause of the vital dete- 
rioration of the population, as by premature death, &c. M. Gasparin 
attributes this scandalum jnagnatum, to an alteration in the natural 
affection of family-^ an alteration in the moral principles of his country- 
men. In Austria, from 1820 to 1840, foundlingism doubled, having 
averaged yearly 49,317. (Melzer.) 

The American Republic has scarcely any pauperism of native 
growth, though it would seem as if many countries of Europe were 
engaged in pauperizing the former, by sending to it their poor for main- 
tainance. Nor is there in the Republic, foreigners excepted, any class 



1819, 


foundlings 


99,346 


1827, 


1820, 


it 


102,103 


1828, 


1821, 


a 


106,403 


1829, 


1822, 


a 


109,297 


1830, 


1823, 


M 


111,767 


1831, 


1824, 


t< 


117,767 


1832, 


1825, 


u 


117,305 


1833, 


1826, 


u 


116,377 





* Brit, and For. Med. Rev. Jan. 1846. 

f Rapport au Roi. 4to. Paris. ] 837. 

I These abandoned foundlings threaten to absorb the greater portion of all 
the resources of the depart men!;?, and cost between ten and eleven millions of 
francs per annum. 



22 

identical with the Dangerous classes — " Des classes Dangereuses" — 
described by M. Fregler, and which, according to him, amount to 
0o,000, in Paris alone, — a class at once poor and willing to commit any 
crime. 

One of the strangest results of* modern statistics, ascertained and 
acknowledged by monarchists themselves, is derived from the vital his- 
tory of hereditary Nobility — a nobility which, in wealth, influence, and 
power, overshadows the British throne, and which transcends, in these 
respects, the material advantages enjoyed by most of the ancient patri- 
cians, barons, and Kings ; — this result proves that the aristocratical 
principle arrests vital increase and longevity — nay, tends to extinction. 
What would aristocrats say of a republican institution which tended to 
extinguish all its male representatives? "/« England, in a great 
majority of cases, the male heirs of the Peerages — and in all cases of 
the Baronetages become extinct for want of male heirs !"* The same 
fact has been admitted as to the old families of Paris. If a physiologist, 
may be allowed to anathematize, he would say with Lady Macbeth, 

"Out damned spot!" 

What is, and what ought to be, are distinct questions. It is proba- 
ble that most statisticians will adopt Bentham's utilitarian standard as 
the true one for statistics, namely, " whatever produces happiness or 
misery is properly called virtuous or vicious. Virtue and vice are but 
useless qualities, unless estimated by their influences on the creation of 
pleasure and pain." He defines the rules of conscience by their 
*' application to the greatest happiness principle," and asserts that the 
most virtuous of all actions, are those which propagate and persevere 
human life.f 

It is not at all material to my argument, that I am unable to show 
how, or in what mode republicanism favors the vital well-being of 
society — the fact is sufficient for my purpose. The chain of causation 
is always difficult to trace ; it frequently eludes observation altogether. 
Lord Brougham says " that it is now admitted by all reasoners, we only 
know the connection between events by their succession one after 
another in point of time, and that what we term causation, the relation 
of cause and effect, is really only the constant precedence of one event, 
act, or thing, to another." (Lives, Men. Sci. 124.) Dugald Stewart 
goes still further, and maintains " that this connection though a constant 
one, may not be a necessary connection, and that if any such exist we 
may rest assured, that we shall never be able to discover them." 

War, the greatest of statistical evils, can rarely happen in a represen- 
tative government, while monarchy tends constantly to war, as the 
passions of the sovereign, not the interests of the people, may dictate. 
Burke estimates that for five thousand years, thirty-six millions of men 
have been killed in battle every century, chiefly for the gratification of 
Kings. 

M. Guizot, the foe of republicanism, in his History of Civilization, 
admits that the European governments originated in violence and were 

* Westminster Review, April, 1847. 
i Theory Soc, Sci. ii, 137, 141. 



23 

cemented with blood ; — to use his own words—" All powei--l say alF 
without distinction — owes its existence in the first place partly to fores 
— violence has sullied all authorities in the world." This evil is not 
inherent, but repugnant to republicanism. For example, the annexa- 
tion of Texas to the United States by the parties representing the 
majorities of both countries, affords an example of acquiring authority 
without violence. The war that followed was altogether accidental. 
It. would not have occurred, but for the fact that Mexico had not 
publicly recognized the Independence of Texas. Were Canada an 
independent nation, so acknowledged by Great Britain, its annexation 
to the United States by means of the suffrages of the people of both 
countries would be free from violence — would be a peaceful acquisition. 

To suppose that vital progression is regulated by no law, but a for- 
tuitous one, unconnected w T ith the organization of society, is not reason- 
able. It is very remarkable, that the writers upon Civilization and its 
advantages, have not recognized the Representative Principle, as the 
true type of all that deserves to be called modern Civilization — the y 
only, really fruitful discovery in social physics, of which the world can 
yet boast. The type of all other governments, is the patriarchical or 
paternal, which, becomes unnatural the moment it is transferred from 
a family — from a true father to the step father, over a nation., since, it 
cannot be tempered by the real parental affection. If modern civiliza- 
tion tends to humanize man, it is chiefly by its equalizing operations, 
that is, by its approximation towards the American principle. 

M. Guizot, the ex-minister of France, usually regarded in Europe as 
the most philosophical expositor of Civilization, is wilfully, or really 
unacquainted with the American principle, since he does not allude to 
it in his History of Civilization — a work in which he holds the follow- 
ing language : " I cannot but regard France" — it was the France which 
Louis Phillippe and himself governed — " I cannot but regard France, 
as the centre, as the focus of Civilization. There is not a single great 
idea, not a single great principle of civilization, which, in order to be- 
come universally spread, has not first passed, through France." A 
British knight, Sir Graves Chamney Haughton, of many titles, in his 
"Inquiry into the first Principles of Reasoning," bravely claims the 
whole system of American Civilization as but a loan from England. 
"The United States affords," says he, "the extraordinary spectacle of 
a People without a Government !" — for such he calls an elective 
Executive ! " It is English Institutions that have reason to be proud of 
Washington, and not the North American Republic, which was the 
offspring, and not the parent of the Deliverer of his Country. Every 
good that America can boast of, she has derived from the Parent State,'' 
(England).* Gauls and Britons, with few exceptions, appear alike 
unacquainted with the advance which America has made in the natural 
history of Government, whether the latter be regarded in its political, 
or physiological action. 

Monarchists argue that republicanism, by exciting ambition, causes 
insanity, while despotism prevents it ! Such seems to be the opinion of 



* Lond. 1839. p. 108, 



24 

M. Baillarger of the Lunatic department of the Salpetriere.* The 
healthful excitement growing out of political freedom from which every 
man has much to hope, and but little to fear, is not- probably productive 
of any malady whatever — and least of all, lunacy. Without going into 
a lengthened review of the vital history of France, it does not seem 
that the modern statistics of that country justifies this conclusion. The 
minister of agriculture and commerce, in a recent work estimates the 
total number of insane, in 1841, among 34,213,927 inhabitants, at 
19,772. According to D'Angevilie, the census of 1836, gives for the 
mean number of lunatics in the eighty-six departments^ fifty-six to every 
100,000 ; or 18,757 for the Kingdom — a number which, for several 
reasons, he considers as greatly under the true one. The department 
of the Seine, (Paris,) gave an average nearly six times higher than the 
general mean, — that is, 312 in 100,000 ; this department which con- 
tained 1,106,891 souls, numbered 3,438 insane persons, (des alienes.) 
Now, by the census of 1840, both the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, 
Mississippi, and Louisiana, with a white population amounting to 
1,824,361, had only 1,658 idiots and insane,— -a proportion nearly four 
times less than that of the Seine. Has the Seine, therefore, four times 
more of that political freedom, which is the supposed cause of insanity? 
Did despotism ever reign in France, without being concentrated in ten 
fold power in its capital? Has not Paris always ruled France ? And 
being now converted into a great military camp, wailed in with the 
most formidable fortifications, will she not continue to do so ? If there 
be any despotism in France, it must be in Paris, the focus of power. 
Why then are the Parisians about six times more liable to insanity 
than the people of the other eighty-five departments, wherein the vie' 
inertia of the government is least? 

Nor is there any ground for supposing that political freedom has any 
tendency to increase the number of suicides : M. D'Angevilie says 
that the number of suicides iti France, officially determined, amount 
annually to 2,000, exceeding all murders and assassinations, more than 
three fold. The number in the year 1837, was 2,413, in 1838, it was 
2,556, and in the next year 2,717 — showing an augmenting ratio, veiy 
great indeed. This crime, in the United States, is comparatively rare, 
if foreigners be deducted. 

The representative principle, so far from producing mental diseases, 
developes the faculties and the affections, giving them the very best 
direction, stimulating them by motives of the most enduring and honora- 
ble kind, by leaving open, to all, the paths to knowledge, power, and 
fame. Without admitting to the fullest extent the doctrine of animal 
perfectibility, the tendency to arise above the original type— the creation 
of new organs, — or the indestructibility of these organs so acquired, as- 
advocated by Lamarck, it. may be affirmed with considerable probability 
that civilization changes even the organization, developing, for example, 
the anatomy, increasing the nutrition, the sensibility, tne adaptive- 
powers, and the energy of the whole nervous system, especially of its 
inter-cranial portion. The phrenologist, would, however, trace the 
l_ — ^ i 

* Lancet, September, 1845. 



taiisation by a different route — the civilization, to the organization. 
Certain it is, that civilized anatomy differs from savage anatomy. 
Thus Mr. Catlin, the enthusiastic admirer of Indians,* admits the infe- 
riority of their muscular system. Mr. Catlin, during a long residence 
among many tribes, painted three thousand full length figures of individ- 
uals of various nations, and must therefore, biases excepted, be well 
qualified to judge of their physical appearance. He says that their 
shoulders are narrow- — that the muscles of the chest, arms, &c, are 
less developed, and that their bones are lighter, and their skulls thin- 
ner, than those of the white race. He adds, that eighteen in twenty 
are by nature entirely without beard. (Am. Ind. ii. 225 — 7). The 
craniological differences among the Indian Nations themselves, and 
between them and the white race, as illustrated in the truly original 
work of Dr. S. G. Morton, of Philadelphia, entitled, Crania Americana, 
are still more remarkable. Dr. Morton, (who has also taken the lead 
in Oriental Craniology), shows in his Crania JEgyptica, that the 
Caucasian and Negro skulls, differed in internal capacity, in external 
conformation, and in the facial angle, four thousand years ago, as they 
do at present, and that the social position of the two races then bore 
the same relation to each other that they do now ; the learned author 
adds, that " the physical or organic characters which distinguish the 
several races of men, are as old as the oldest records of our species." 

The Crania Republicana has not yet been written, and consequently, 
it cannot be compared with monarchial craniology. A difference there 
must be, if phrenology be true, since it assumes, that the spiritualistic- 
constitution, responds to the materialistic — the psychological manifes- 
tation, + o the anatomical conformation. Dr. Morton, in his Crania 
Americana, appears unwilling to assent to all the details of this science, 
though he admits "that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that its 
parts perform different functions." 

One of the soundest of phrenological expounders, Mr. George Combe, 
maintains that the natural talents and dispositions of nations, equally with 
individuals, arc the results of their cerebral developments ; he adds, 
that " those who contend that institutions come first, and that character 
follows as their effect, are bound to assign a cause lor the institutions 
themselves. If they do not spring from the native mind, and are not 
forced on the people by conquest, it is difficult to see whence they can 
originate." 4i The grain of the New Holland skulls is extremely rough 
and coarse ; that of the Hindoos, fine, smooth, and compact, more 
closely resembling ivory ; the Swiss skulls are open and sof in the grain, 
while the Greek are cioser and finer. There would be a correspond- 
ing quality of brain &c. The real characters of foreign nations will 
never be philosophically delineated, until travellers shall describe their 

* An exuberance of charity guided Mr. Catlin's pen, in writing the follow- 
ing, and many similar passages, eulogizing the most inflexible, and in that 
respect the most sublime race of savages that ever walked the face of the 
earth : " I fearlessly assert to the world (and I defy contradiction,) that the 
North American Indian is everywhere, in his native state, a highly moral and 
religious being." " Morality and virtue, I venture to say, the civilized world 
need not undertake to teach the Indians ; they are by nature decent, modest, 
unassuming and inoffensive." (Am. Ind. ii. VA3. 245.) 

4 



26 

temperaments, and the size and combinations of their brains." (Phre- 
not. 586. 582). If these doctrines be well founded, the Anglo-Ameri- 
can skulls must be different from the rest of mankind, seeing that all 
others have from the beginning of the world bowed to monarchs. 

The psychology, not less than the anatomy of races, differs. The 
mental, as well as physical constitution is to a considerable extent 
peculiar, fixed, and transmissible from generation to generation, as 
among the Hebrews, the Arabs, the Hindoos, the American Indians, the 
Negroes. These retain their original types as far back as history 
reaches. The physiological anatomy of nations and of races, opens a 
new, rich, and inviting field to the vital ethnologist. The craniological 
contributions of phrenologists, and of Dr. Morton, upon this subject, 
have advanced the psychology, ethnography and natural history of the 
different races, together with a better knowledge of the national charac- 
teristics of mankind. Does the Republican or any other form of 
government depend altogether upon anatomical structure? Does the 
form of government create and sustain the essential conditions of vital 
decline, or of vital progression, independently of any peculiar organ- 
ization in the nervous system or brain? Here the physicist, the phre- 
nologist, the physiologist, the moralist and the ethnologist may differ in 
their methods of explaining vital phenomenology. The moral influen- 
ces are great upon the progress of vital physics. A celebrated physi- 
ologist of Paris, M. Magendie, in a lecture about three years ago, 
declared, (but without the least probability), that the whole benefit 
derived from blood-letting, in disease, is due to its moral effect on the 
imagination ! " For ten years," says he, (in speaking of the blood- 
lettings which he had performed), " I have endeavored to act on the 
mind of the patient rather than on the circulation /" (Boston Med. 
Jour. May, 1846.) 

Dr. Rush, (the Hippocrates ot America, and the Washington of 
Revolutionary doctors), in his " Account of the influence of the military 
and political events of the American Revolution upon the Human Body," 
asserts that this great event " restored to perfect health, many persons 
of infirm and delicate habits, especially hysterical women" and caused 
a greater fecundity in the United States, than had ever been observed 
since the settlement of the country. It produced among the patriots an 
uncommon cheerfulness, while, upon the other hand the Royalists died 
off rapidly ; — "their deaths were ascribed to the neglect with which 
they were treated by their ancient friends." Many of these had sworn 
allegiance to the British Government in order to protect their estates. 
" Their disease was called, by the common people, the protection fever." 
^Lord Brougham says, in relation to the death of the Princess Char- 
lotte : " the whole country felt the blow, as if it had been levelled at 
every family within its bounds. While the tears of all classes flowed, 
and the manlier sex itself was softened to pity, the female imagination 
was occupied, bewildered, distracted, and the labors of child-bearing 
caused innumerable victims among those whom the accident had struck 
down to the ground /" (Hist. Sket. ii, 43.) 

To this example of the moral influences upon population, I add 
another taken from the same author — an example less touching, but 
not less illustrative. For eight years the Prince Regent reigned de 



27 

facto— during the lunacy of his father, and was virtually King : kk no 
Prince," says Lord Brougham, " was ever more unpopular while his 
iather lived — a week before the death of George III, he travelled to and 
fro, without attracting more notice than any ordinary wayfaring man. 
Merely because his name was changed to King from Regent, he was 
greeted by crowds of loyal and curious subjects, anxious to satiate their 
longing eyes with the sight of a King in name." Indeed, Lord 
Brougham says, that " a few months before" [his coronation] " he 
durst as soon have walked into the flames as into an assembly of his 
subjects in any part of the empire." Speaking of the English, he asks, 
"if there be on the face of the globe any other people to whom the 
fortunes and the favor of Kings and Queens are so dear an object of 
concern ? The barbarians of Russia flocking to be murdered by their 
savage Czar, or the slaves of Eastern tyrants kissing the bow-string 
that is to end their existence, act under the immediate influence of 
strong and habitual religious feeling — the feeling that makes them quail 
and bow before a present divinity. But no people, no rational set of 
men, ever displayed to an admiring world the fondness for kings 
and queens, the desire to find favor in the royal sight, the entire ab- 
sorption in loyal contemplations, which has generally distinguished the 
manly, reflecting, free-born English nation." 

It has been asserted, with what truth I know not, that many French- 
men who resemble Napoleon, have got that resemblance from thinking 
of him, imitating his manners, &c. 

It is remarkable, that the moral influences, — the benevolent efforts 
of individuals, of churches, and of the government, have all failed to 
civilize the North American Indian, — failed to change his psychologi- 
cal character ; while the South American Indians become christians, 
and readily submit to slavery, the North American Indian cannot by. 
any human power be induced to submit to the former, or embrace the 
latter. His hatred to civilization, and to every kind of labor for him- 
self, or another, is as fixed as the anatomy of his cheek bones, the 
color of his skin — fixed as his love for personal liberty — a liberty at 
once stern, sterile, and despotic, — a savage independence, the least 
encroachment upon which, real or imaginary, fires him with enduring 
revenge. It is this independence that is the theme of his death-song — 
that consoles him while contemplating the destiny which steadily but 
surely tends to the extinction of his race. To use his own sublime 
language, " the Red Men are fast travelling to the shades of their 
fathers, towards the setting sun" — this alternative, involving the 
extinction of his race, he choses in preference to the civilization of the 
4k Pale faces." This savage independence gives to the Indian charac- 
ter a sublimity without a parallel. This redeeming virtue, if it may be 
so called, when isolated from all the other elements of social physics, 
must have forcibly impressed the Anglo-American mind during the first 
settlement of the country ; it may even have contributed to hasten the 
development of that higher, purer, and more rational independence, 
which, with the new form of civilization (the representative govern- 
ment) was at length achieved — a form which promises to extend 
throughout both hemispheres — which carries with it all the elements of 
well-being, mental, material, vital, and which, whatever be the nature 



28 

of its viviiying action, presents as its resultant the sublimest spectacle 
that the sun beholds in his diurnal revolution, namely, the wave ot' 
population flowing from Maine to Oregon — from Florida to California — 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; — while, " from the rivers to the ends 
of the earth," despots are flying — the vital masses, the people, anima- 
ted by this principle, are breaking the chains with which their ances- 
tors, as well as themselves, had always been fettered ; whole nations 
standing with drawn swords, uttering as with the voice of thunder 
their determination to be free, while the Genius of History holds the 
pen ready to write — The Last of the Kings ! — an event, which the 
greatest, the wisest, the best and the most consistent apostle of monarchy, 
foresaw, nay, seemed to welcome just before his noble spirit took its 
flight from earth to immortality. The last political paper whicji Cha- 
teaubriand wrote early in the year 1847 — a period when the nations 
were free from perturbation, contained this, perhaps, the most 
remarkable prediction ever uttered by uninspired writer : Thus spoke 
the dying patriarch, of Legitimacy, and of French Literature : " In 
politics I have believed in liberty ; I wished to see it established by 
means of royalty, because it seemed to me, that emanating from a 
principle of authority, it would be less an object of dread and better 
regulated. If Kings would not have it so, it is not my fault ; and I 
have often predicted their fate, when they have mistaken their way. 
Now Kings fail ; I remain faithful to them from a sense of honor rather 
than opinion. This, then, is my position. I am preparing to die a 
free citizen. It is by means of Christianity that after a lapse of one or 
two centuries, the ancient form of society, which is now in a state of 
decomposition, will be renovated." 

Addendum. I beg leave to add the following note, hoping that it 
may attract the attention of the American Medical Association. If that 
distinguished and patriotic medical Congress should call the attention of 
the Government to an improved method of taking the decennial census, 
and should recommend as expedient, the adoption, in connection with 
other nations, of one method for all, as far as may be convenient, great 
advantages would result to the science of political economy and vital statis- 
tics. The mutual interests of nations as well as the interests of 
science, require that statistical methods should be identical or similar ; 
otherwise numerical comparisons must be very unsatisfactory, nay, 
almost impossible, as every honest inquirer must admit. 

Had the different nations that cultivate statistical science, adopted the 
same methods, the same points of departure, and the same aims, 
numerical comparisons would not be, what they are now, very unsatis- 
factory, because uncertain. Each nation has not only a different pro- 
cess and a different time, but often a different object, in periodical 
enumerations, according as the military, industrial, or other interest 
sways the government. Even, in the same country, one annual or 
decennial census diners, sometimes, essentially in its classification from 
that by which it was preceded : for example, the census of the United 
States for 1800, reckons all persons under sixteen years of age as one 
class. In the next decennial enumeration, this class is divided into 
one and a fraction, and ten years after into three and a fraction. In 
1800, and in the two succeeding decennial periods, all persons aged 45 



29 

and over, form but one class, while in 1830, this class undergoes sii 
decimations, and in no census are any persons reckoned as exceeding 
one hundred years, though some survive that age from ten to forty 
years, particularly in the South. In every census the black race is 
classified in a manner wholly different from the white, while, in both, 
births and deaths, are entirely omitted. Hence several of the important 
elements of vital statistics can never enter into our calculations. 

A registry of births, deaths, and ages, is required in order to solve 
many vital problems. For example, is the comparative mean duration 
of life in New Orleans, Paris, London, or St. Petersburg, a question to 
be solved ? Is not this question one of simple arithmetic 1 Suppose 
the creolized population of New Orleans to be only 100,000 — exclude 
from this reckoning immigration and emigration — suppose the births to 
be annually 4,000, and the deaths the same, — then the population will 
be stationary, and the mean duration of life will be exactly twenty-five 
years, however much individual ages may vary from each other. 
Hence, by using the births or deaths for a divisor, the quotient will be 
the average or mean life of the entire population. But this will be an 
erroneous method, if in our population, the births be as above, 4,000, 
while the deaths are only 2,000 yearly : — for, in this case, the mean 
life will be doubled, or at least greatly augmented. When the ratio 
between the births and deaths differ considerably, the mean of the two 
will serve as a divisor in the obtainment of the mean life, with, at least, 
an approximative certainty. If the unacclimated portion of New 
Orleans be reckoned at one -fourth of the entire population, this fourth 
will probably furnish the half of the annual mortality, and consequently 
the mean length of life among Creoles will be greatly diminished. 
Thus, if the mean life of Creoles be 45, while that of strangers is only 
25, the average life of New Orleans will be only 35, that is, Creole 
life will be shortened ten years by the doctrine of averages, which, to 
a greater or lesser extent, actually happens. 



